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Thursday, December 5, 2013

Suspense, yes. Melodrama, no.

Life includes suspense. Good stories, then, include suspense.

Your memoir needs suspense. Hook your reader and make her
eager to know the outcome—but make her wait for it. Suspense implies an
uncomfortable waiting mixed with impatience for a good resolution . It arouses
curiosity. It keeps her reading.

Today we continue with these all-important ingredients for your memoir: Suspense. Tension.
Conflict.

A critiquer had returned one of Becca’s manuscripts and had
noted, several times, the need for tension. “Where’s the tension?” and “Add
more tension.” (Becca’s manuscript was fiction but remember: Many fiction
techniques are important nonfiction techniques, too.)

Becca said, “No tension? What’s she talking about? The main
character was just abandoned by her father. Her best friend was attacked by
racist pigs. The family farm is about to go under.… There is conflict ALL OVER
the place, so how can she say there’s no tension??”

Becca was puzzled but eventually recognized that conflict
and tension are not necessarily the same thing. She adds, “Although the terms
are often used interchangeably (and they CAN be synonymous), they aren’t
necessarily the same.”

Conflict is when a character has a goal but an obstacle
prevents him from reaching it.

Tension, on the other hand, stirs up the reader’s emotion, grabs
hold of him, and makes him care about how the story will end—and it keeps him reading. Tension, Becca says, is “that tight, stretched feeling in your belly
that makes you all jittery. That’s what you want your reader to feel.…”

Every scene should have tension, FaithWriter’s Lillian Duncan
says, sometimes big, sometimes little. “It may be internal or external. It may
be real or imagined, but there should be a sense of unpredictability in every
scene.…”

Lillian offers this word of caution: Melodrama is not a mark
of good writing. Avoid overwriting. “Keep your ‘flowery’ writing to a minimum.”

Quoting and Linking

Grandma's Letters from Africa

All I ever wanted was to live a quiet, secure life in a little white house with a picket fence and a rose garden, but my husband Dave—a free spirit who seldom limits himself to coloring within other people’s lines—and our adventuresome God had other plans. Just when our youngest finished college, both Dave and God hollered, “Africa!” You can read about my adventures in Grandma’s Letters from Africa, by Linda K. Thomas.

Grandma’s Letters from Africa received Editor’s Choice, Rising Star, and Reader's Choice awards from the publisher. In addition, the book will soon be listed in the Barnes&Noble.com Special Collections Boutique.

What others are saying

Grandma’s Letters from Africa is an engaging, memorable account of Linda’s years in Africa. It was a privilege for me to read over the shoulders of her granddaughters as Linda tells her story through a series of letters. Through both laughter and tears, she learns to balance her roles as missionary, wife, mother, and grandmother. In the process, Linda falls in love with Africa, its people, and her work. Readers will be moved by this compelling story that reveals God’s heart and extraordinary grace. (Bob Creson, President/CEO, Wycliffe USA)

Read more endorsements, reviews, and follow Linda’s blog at http://grandmaslettersfromafrica.blogspot.com